Tag: Auction/Bidding

Auction and Bidding games typically have players place bids on in-game items and advantages to improve their position within the game.

Gutenberg

| T3d-1978
Gutenberg

Gutenberg

Gutenberg is a board game for 1-4 people in which players will play as the pioneers of printing in the 15th century. By carrying out orders, they will build their wealth and fame. By improving their printing workshops and gaining the support of patrons, they will develop their production capacity. The game will be won by a printer who boasts the greatest recognition and wealth.

By bidding for specific actions, players will develop their workshop, acquire new fonts, inks and decorations. The unique system of rotating gears allows you to combine bonuses and earn a large number of points.

The game is won by the player with the most points after six rounds.

Game Mechanics:

  • Auction/Bidding
  • Open Drafting
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.63

Guild Master

| T3d-1978
Guild Master

Guild Master

Guild Master is a fantasy tabletop game for 2-4 players. Players manage an adventuring guild, competing with each other to become the most famous guild as an escalating series of events threaten the land. In each of the nine rounds, players simultaneously and secretly program orders to send teams of adventurers out to do the following:

  • Recruit more adventurers.
  • Attempt increasingly difficult contracts to gain money, fame and other rewards.
  • Hire builders to upgrade their guild to increase their capacity to do all of that more.

All players then sequentially resolve their planned orders, starting with each players’ 1st order, then 2nd order and so on, and in the order they appear on the board (builders, then adventurers A-F then contracts 1-6).

Players plan and program orders carefully around other players’ likely moves, various strategies, risks, and rewards. They manage their guilds’ growth and optimize combinations between their adventurer abilities and contract rewards to achieve their goals. As the game advances, guilds become more powerful and must rise to meet an increasing number of game state changing threats. Recruiting increasingly powerful adventurers and upgrading your guild capacity are both key to victory. There are various ways to exert control over the board, your dice rolls, and your chances to get what you want.

Most orders are resolved by paying coin or rolling dice based on your adventurers’ skills. Sometimes players resolve these orders alone, and sometimes cooperating with, or in conflict with, other guild’s adventuring teams attempting the same thing at the same time. When players’ orders overlap, coins and negotiated prisoners’ dilemma cooperate/conflict skill checks resolve the contest. Negotiation over shared goals, contract bonuses and reward splits is encouraged and rewarding, but not absolutely required to win.

Everything you do earns you fame (victory points) and other rewards. At the end of nine rounds, any remaining coins are converted to fame at a rate of 5 coins = 1 fame. Then any special prestige upgrade fame is added. The most famous guild is then declared the winner.

Game Mechanics:

  • Auction/Bidding
  • Deck Building
  • Deduction
  • Dice Rolling
  • Hand Management
  • Negotiation
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.89

Godspeed

| T3d-1978
Godspeed

Godspeed

The Space Race was a lie.

Look, it’s not that the moon landing was faked. It happened. Neil hates the conspiracy theories. The lie is that we ever wanted to go to the moon. We needed a spectacle to show the people. To justify the massive budgets. The agencies.

Neil stepped on a rock 239,000 miles from Earth. Big deal. I stepped on an exoplanet circling Ursae Majoris 18 months earlier. It’s a one-way trip — so there ain’t any going home.

No ticker tape parade for me, but that’s ok. I’m here for my country. See, the Russians beat us here by a few months. Japanese showed up a few weeks after us. We’ll colonize this planet for America. Because there isn’t a choice…

Godspeed is a mid-weight worker placement game of extra-terrestrial colonization for 2-5 players with a 60-90 minute playtime. — From the back of the box

In Godspeed, players play as scientists from one of 5 nations: the USA, Japan, Soviet Union, the European Nations, or India. The game is played in 10 rounds, each with four phases.

  1. High Council Phase — This is a negotiation phase where Nations will convene to decide how they will respond to an event occurring back on Earth or on the Exoplanet. The top card is drawn from the High Council deck. Nations then decide to respond to the event by assigning the specified Team Member to the event, keeping them from use during the rest of the round. If all Nations respond then everyone gets the bonus. If not, there’s a penalty for those that ignored it.
  2. Supply Depot Phase — This is an auction phase where Nations bid on Supply Depot cards or the first player marker. Players choose cards in the order of their bids. The player with the highest bid may take a second delivery.
  3. Action Phase — This is a worker placement phase. Nations place Team Members in Action Spaces to take various actions and earn prestige.
  4. Resolution Phase — In this phase, the Nations produce new resources and return their Team Members home.

Points — Prestige is gained on 4 tracks (Defense, Exploration, Commerce, and Infrastructure) and your position on these tracks gains you points at the end of the game. You may also gain points by achieving Civilization Milestones (only 1 Nation may claim each Milestone), completing Lunar Season scoring cards (any number of Nations may complete these), building ancient XenoRelics, completing special objective cards, and for left over resources.

The Nation with the most victory points wins.

Game Mechanics:

  • Auction/Bidding
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 45 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.62

Five Tribes

| T3d-1978
Five Tribes

Five Tribes

Crossing into the Land of 1001 Nights, your caravan arrives at the fabled Sultanate of Naqala. The old sultan just died and control of Naqala is up for grabs! The oracles foretold of strangers who would maneuver the Five Tribes to gain influence over the legendary city-state. Will you fulfill the prophecy? Invoke the old Djinns and move the Tribes into position at the right time, and the Sultanate may become yours!

Designed by Bruno Cathala, Five Tribes builds on a long tradition of German-style games that feature wooden meeples. Here, in a unique twist on the now-standard “worker placement” genre, the game begins with the meeples already in place – and players must cleverly maneuver them over the villages, markets, oases, and sacred places tiles that make up Naqala. How, when, and where you dis-place these Five Tribes of Assassins, Elders, Builders, Merchants, and Viziers determine your victory or failure.

As befitting a Days of Wonder game, the rules are straightforward and easy to learn. But devising a winning strategy will take a more calculated approach than our standard fare. You need to carefully consider what moves can score you well and put your opponents at a disadvantage. You need to weigh many different pathways to victory, including the summoning of powerful Djinns that may help your cause as you attempt to control this legendary Sultanate.

Game Mechanics:

  • Auction/Bidding
  • Set Collection
  • Take That

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 40 – 80 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.85

El Grande Big Box

| T3d-1978
El Grande Big Box

El Grande Big Box

In El Grande, players take on the roles of Grandes in medieval Spain. The king’s power is flagging, and these powerful lords are vying for control of the various regions. To that end, you draft caballeros (knights in the form of meeples) into your court and subsequently move them onto the board to help seize control of regions. After every third round, the regions are scored, and after the ninth round, the player with the most points is the winner.

In each of the nine rounds, you select one of your 13 power cards to determine turn order as well as the number of caballeros you get to move from the provinces (general supply) into your court (personal supply).

A turn then consists of selecting one of five action cards which allow variations to the rules and additional scoring opportunities in addition to determining how many caballeros to move from your court to one or more of the regions on the board (or into the castillo—a secretive tower). Normally, you may only place your caballeros into regions adjacent to the one containing the king’s pawn. The one hard and fast rule in El Grande is that nothing may move into or out of the king’s region. One of the five action cards that is always available each round allows you to move the king to a new region. The other four action cards vary from round to round.

The goal is to have a majority of caballeros in as many regions (and the castillo) as possible during a scoring round. Following the scoring of the castillo, you place any meeples you had stashed there into the region you had secretly indicated on your region dial. Each region is then scored individually according to a table printed in that region. Two-point bonuses are awarded for having sole majority in the region containing your Grande (large meeple) and in the region containing the king.

El Grande Big Box, the 20th anniversary edition of El Grande, includes all previously published expansions: Grand Inquisitor & Colonies, Grandissimo, King & Intrigant, King & Intrigant: Players’ Edition and King & Intrigant: Special Cards as well as something currently known only as the “Anniversary Extension”.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Area Movement
  • Auction/Bidding
  • Hand Management
  • Memory
  • Open Drafting

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.80

Cyclades

| T3d-1978

In this latest collaboration between Bruno Cathala and Ludovic Maublanc, players must buy the favor of the gods in their race to be the first player to build two cities in the Ancient Greek island group known as the Cyclades.

Victory requires respect for all the gods – players cannot afford to sacrifice to only one god, but must pay homage to each of five gods in turn. Each turn, the players bid for the favors of the gods, as only one player can have the favor of each god per turn – and each player is also limited to the favor of a single god per turn.

  • Ares allows the movement of player armies and the building of Fortresses.
  • Poseidon allows players to move their navies and build Ports.
  • Zeus allows his followers to hire priests and build temples.
  • Athena provides her worshipers with philosophers and universities.
  • Apollo increases the income of his worshipers.

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Auction/Bidding
  • City Building
  • Civilization
  • Dice Rolling
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.82

Court of the Dead: Mourner’s Call

| T3d-1978

Everyone is already dead in the Underworld. It’s time to join the factions of Bone, Flesh and Spirit as they work to achieve the goal of the Underworld: to gather enough forces to take on the celestials of Heaven and Hell to end their ceaseless war. If the players work diplomatically in Court of the Dead: Mourners Call to maintain a balance, they can ensure the Underworld survives long enough for them to also complete their collective and hidden individual objectives. The player who best contributes to these goals will earn Death’s favor and a place among the elite of the Underworld.

You are a Mourner — an allegiant of Death — dedicated to realizing his noble ambition to end the celestial war and restore balance to the universe. However, Death’s purpose includes your own ulterior motives. You and your fellow Mourners must unite and rise, or fall together. But only one Mourner will achieve their particular vision of the Underworld united. Your task will not be easy. While the Underworld is united in its purpose, it is divided in its strategy to achieve that aim. There are three factions in the Land of the Dead: Bone, Flesh, Spirit. Each is a unique path to rise up against Heaven and Hell.

You will need to strategically manipulate your influence within these factions, their strongholds and guilds, and within the Court of the Dead if you wish to achieve your ends. But beware: The power within mortal souls — known as Etherea — is a perilous substance. Use it carelessly, and you risk invoking the Dreadsgrip – a destructive force within every Mourner that consumes all it touches, including its former master. Failing to satiate the celestials’ war need, or triggering the Dreadsgrip, has dire consequences for all Mourners. Are you strong enough to achieve your own ambitions and be the champion for the uniting force for which all Mourners Call?

Game Mechanics:

  • Area Control
  • Auction/Bidding
  • Dice Rolling
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting
  • Take That
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • ~90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.94

Coimbra

| T3d-1978

In the 15th and 16th century, Portugal is thriving under its leading role during the Age of Discovery. Nestled in the heart of Portugal, the city of Coimbra serves as a cultural center of the country. As the head of one of Coimbra’s oldest houses, you seek to earn prestige by deepening relationships with nearby monasteries or funding expeditions of the era. To reach this goal, you must vie for the favors of the city’s most influential citizens, even if you must offer a bit of coin or some protective detail.

Coimbra introduces an innovative new dice mechanism in which the dice players draft each round are used in multiple different ways and have an impact on many aspects of their decision making. While there are many paths to victory, players should always seek to optimize their opportunities with every roll of the dice. Combined with ever-changing synergies of the citizens, expeditions, and monasteries, no two games of Coimbra will ever be the same!

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Drafting
  • Auction/Bidding
  • Dice Rolling
  • Open Drafting
  • Set Collection
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 3.27

Stockpile

| T3d-1978
Stockpile

Stockpile

Stockpile is an economic board game that combines the traditional stockholding strategy of buy low, sell high with several additional mechanisms to create a fast-paced, engaging and interactive experience.

In Stockpile, players act as stock market investors at the end of the 20th century hoping to strike it rich, and the investor with the most money at the end of the game is the winner. Stockpile centers on the idea that nobody knows everything about the stock market, but everyone does know something. In the game, this philosophy manifests in two ways: insider information and the stockpile.

First, players are given insider information each round. This information dictates how a stock’s value will change at the end of the round. By privately learning if a stock is going to move up or down, each player has a chance to act ahead of the market by buying or selling at the right time.

Second, players purchase their stocks by bidding on piles of cards called stockpiles. These stockpiles will contain a mixture of face-up and face-down cards placed by other players in the game. In this way, nobody will know all of the cards in the stockpiles. Not all cards are good either. Trading fees can poison the piles by making players pay more than they bid. By putting stocks and other cards up for auction, Stockpile catalyzes player interaction, especially when potential profits from insider information are on the line.

Both of these mechanisms are combined with some stock market elements to make players consider multiple factors when selling a stock. Do you hold onto a stock in hopes of catching a lucrative stock split or do you sell now to avoid the potential company bankruptcy? Can you hold onto your stock until the end of the game to become the majority shareholder, or do you need the liquidity of cash now for future bidding? Do you risk it all by investing heavily into one company, or do you mitigate your risk by diversifying your portfolio?

In the end, everyone knows something about the stock market, so it all comes down to strategy execution. Will you be able to navigate the movements of the stock market with certainty? Or will your investments go under from poor predictions?

Game Mechanics:

  • Auction/Bidding
  • Economic
  • Open Drafting
  • Stock Holding

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.11

Railroad Rivals

| T3d-1978
Railroad Rivals

Railroad Rivals

While playing Railroad Rivals, you connect cities via one of the twelve great railroads that stretched across the United States, while simultaneously building your stock portfolio. You then use those railroads to make deliveries that drive up the price of your stocks. At the end of the game, the player who has run the most profitable railroad while also owning the most valuable stocks becomes the greatest of all of the railroad rivals!

In more detail, Railroad Rivals is a tile-drafting and -laying game in which you build a railroad empire that stretches across America…and across your table. Each turn you draft one new city tile and one new railroad stock tile. You then lay one of your city tiles next to a city tile that is already on the table to create a link between the two cities. The matching edges must both have the same railroad on them. Each newly laid city gets one or more randomly drawn colored cubes placed on it that represent the goods that can be delivered from that city. After all players have laid their city tile, you deliver one goods cube using one of that city’s railroad links. This gives you points and raises the value of that railroad stock.

At the end of the game, your score is the total of all of the points that you received from deliveries, from other players using your railroad links, and from the value of all of your railroad stock tiles.

Game Mechanics:

  • Auction/Bidding
  • Open Drafting
  • Tile Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.07